Core Model

Most days, people are not arguing about "the economy."

They are arguing about whether life feels workable.

Can I pay the bills and still breathe?
Can I switch jobs without risking my family's health insurance?
Can I move closer to opportunity without lighting my budget on fire?
Can I trust that the rules apply to everyone, including the powerful?

When those answers start turning into "no," people do not just get poorer. They get jumpier. More reactive. More certain. More tribal. That is not a character flaw. That is what humans do under sustained stress.

This model is my attempt to describe that pattern and point at a way out.

Layer 0: The 30-second version

Here is the loop I think we are stuck in:

monthly squeeze -> insecurity -> manipulation -> division -> no fixes -> more squeeze

And here is the loop I am trying to build toward:

security -> real choice -> fair competition -> shared gains -> more security

If you want the practical version: lower the big monthly costs, make "choice" real (not theoretical), enforce guardrails that actually bite, cut the hidden tax of complexity, and keep institutions hard to capture.

Layer 1: The point (what this is really about)

I am not trying to "win" economics or politics.

I am trying to make everyday life feel less like a rigged obstacle course.

My north star is simple:

A strong middle class is not a reward for a healthy economy; it is what makes one possible.

When regular people have breathing room, the whole system gets less fragile. Markets work better. Communities fight less. Democracy steadies itself.

And yes, tone is part of the model. Not because we need to be nice for the sake of being nice, but because contempt is how you lose the plot and hand your steering wheel to the outrage machine. If the goal is a shared future, you cannot build it out of humiliation.

Layer 2: The basic mechanics

Think of society like a household with two things:

a monthly budget
a stress gauge, the part of your brain that decides if you are safe

When the budget gets squeezed, the stress gauge pegs into the red.

If you are constantly bracing for the next bill, you have less bandwidth. Your time horizon shrinks. Your options narrow. You tolerate worse deals because switching is expensive. You believe scarier stories because your brain is already in "danger mode."

So the model treats economic stress and information stress as coupled systems.

Not because people are weak.

Because humans are human.

Here are the mechanics, in plain language:

Security floor: one shock should not collapse a household. (Life will always be life. But it should not be one bad week away from catastrophe.)
Real options: "you can always leave" only counts if leaving is actually possible. (If switching jobs, moving, changing providers, or saying "no" is impractical, you do not have choice; you have theory.)
Open markets with hard guardrails: pro-competition, anti-rigging. (Markets are great at discovery. They are terrible at self-policing.)
Rules that cannot be bought (and people to enforce them): (If the referee can be bribed, threatened, or out-lawyered, the rules become a suggestion. Suggestions do not stop concentrated power.)
Low-friction delivery: complexity is a hidden tax. (It lands hardest on exhausted people, and it rewards the folks who can afford experts.)
Shared-gains feedback: broad gains reduce insecurity, which improves decisions, which reduces chaos. (Security makes people harder to manipulate. That is the whole point.)

Layer 3: The loop we are stuck in

Here is the loop, with the human version attached.

1) Monthly squeeze

People do not usually say, "I am experiencing macroeconomic fragility."

They say:

"I cannot get ahead."
"If one thing breaks, we are screwed."
"We make decent money and it still feels tight."

The squeeze is mostly the big monthly anchors: housing, healthcare, childcare, education/debt, plus the "everything else" that has to fit around them.

2) Insecurity

Insecurity is not a moral failure. It is a physiological state.

When you do not feel safe, your brain does what brains do: it scans for threats, shortens the time horizon, and reaches for certainty.

3) Manipulation

An attention economy learns what we react to and then feeds it back to us.

Fear and anger are high-octane fuels. They are not fake. They are just easy to hijack.

When people are already insecure, it takes less effort to aim them at a target.

4) Division

Once identity gets involved, facts become optional.

People start defending their side the way they would defend their family. That is how you end up with neighbors living in incompatible realities.

5) No fixes

Division makes competent governance harder.

It turns every proposal into a team sport.

It makes long-term planning look like betrayal.

It makes enforcement look political.

It makes corruption easier to hide.

So... no fixes.

6) More squeeze

And when we do not fix the squeeze, it grows.

Which resets the loop.

Layer 4: Where the squeeze lives (the four big buckets)

These domains are different in details, but the pattern repeats: constraints + complexity + concentrated power = higher costs and fewer real options.

Housing

Housing is the biggest monthly line item for most households.

When supply is constrained and approvals are slow, prices rise.

When prices rise, mobility drops.

When mobility drops, workers have less bargaining power.

What good looks like: more homes where people need them, faster approvals with clear rules, and fewer bottlenecks that reward insiders.

Healthcare

Healthcare is expensive in dollars and in time.

Opaque pricing, consolidation, admin drag, and misaligned incentives turn care into a maze.

A maze is profitable for someone. It is exhausting for everyone else.

What good looks like: simpler billing, transparent prices, fewer middlemen with veto power, and strong accountability for denials and errors.

Childcare

Childcare is labor-intensive, regulated, and often underbuilt.

Providers run on thin margins; families pay a lot; workers still do not make enough.

That is a system design problem, not a parents should budget better problem.

What good looks like: more supply, stable funding, easier pathways for providers, and better pay without pricing families out.

Education and debt

Education is supposed to be a mobility engine.

When costs rise faster than outcomes, and debt becomes a long-term ankle weight, the mobility promise gets fragile.

What good looks like: clearer ROI, lower-cost pathways, and fewer traps that turn aspiration into lifelong payments.

Layer 5: The target loop (what we are building toward)

The model is not utopia.

It is a better default setting.

1) Security

A society where a normal household can take a hit, a medical bill, a layoff, a car repair, without free-falling.

Security does not make people lazy. It makes them less desperate.

Less desperate people make better decisions.

2) Real choice

Choice means exit is possible.

If switching jobs, moving, changing providers, or walking away from a bad deal is practical, power spreads out. If it is not practical, power concentrates.

3) Fair competition (with hard guardrails)

Competition is how we keep systems from ossifying into extraction machines.

But competition does not survive on vibes. It needs rules with teeth: anti-rigging, anti-fraud, anti-monopoly, and enforcement capacity that is not for sale.

4) Shared gains

When gains are broad, people calm down.

They plan. They invest in the future.

They do not need a villain in every story to explain their stress.

5) More security

Shared gains reinforce security.

And security reinforces good decision-making.

And good decision-making reduces the demand for manipulative certainty.

That is the virtuous loop.

Layer 6: A practical decision checklist

Use this on a policy proposal, a corporate behavior, a news narrative, or your own hot take.

Does it lower monthly squeeze in real households?
Does it expand real options and switching power?
Does it reduce concentration or capture risk?
Can normal people use it without expert navigation?
Are guardrails enforceable with current capacity?
Does it create shared gains that can compound over time?

If the answer is mostly no, it is probably not an Economy for Everyone move, even if the messaging sounds amazing and your team is cheering.

(Especially if your team is cheering.)